Early voting for the Metro Nashville general election runoffs begins Aug. 25 and concludes Sept. 9. Election Day is Sept. 14.

Runoff elections for Metro Davidson County mayor and four at-large Metro Council seats were set after the initial general election didn’t produce majority winners.

Freddie O’Connell and Alice Rolli advanced to the mayoral runoff, with O’Connell receiving 27% of the vote Aug. 3, and Rolli coming in second with 20%.

Current at-large Metro Council member Zulfat Suara will serve another term as an at-large member after being the only candidate to clear the 10% threshold to win an at-large seat. Eight candidates will vie for the remaining four seats, including Burkley Allen, Chris Cheng, Quin Evans-Segall, Olivia Hill, Howard Jones, Delishia Porterfield, Russ Pulley and Jeff Syracuse.

Three Metro Council district races will also have runoffs after no candidate garnered 50% of the vote.

• District 4: Davette Blalock vs. Mike Cortese

• District 11: Jeff Eslick vs. Eric Patton

• District 29: Tasha Ellis vs. John Reed

Yellow Corp. officially declares bankruptcy

Trucking company Yellow Corp. has declared bankruptcy after years of financial struggles and growing debt, marking a significant shift for the U.S. transportation industry and shippers nationwide.

The Chapter 11 bankruptcy, which was filed Sunday, comes just three years after Yellow received $700 million in pandemic-era loans from the federal government. While a Chapter 11 filing is used to restructure debt while operations continue, Yellow, like other trucking companies in recent years, will liquidate and the U.S. will join other creditors unlikely to recover funds from the extended to the company.

Yellow fell into severe financial stress after a long stretch of poor management and strategic decisions dating back decades.

Former Yellow customers and shippers may face higher prices as they take their business to competitors, including FedEx or ABF Freight, experts say, noting Yellow historically offered the cheapest price points in the industry.

Yellow, formerly known as YRC Worldwide Inc., is one of the nation’s largest less-than-truckload carriers. The Nashville-based company had 30,000 employees across the country.

The Wall Street Journal and FreightWaves reported in late July that the bankruptcy was coming, noting that customers had already started to leave the carrier in large numbers and that the company had stopped freight pickups.

Lebanon pursues ‘special census’ on their own

Officials in the city of Lebanon worried that the amount of state money distributed from Tennessee agencies based on 2020 census figures wasn’t keeping pace with explosive growth. So they reached out to the U.S. Census Bureau to ask about conducting another head count, or “special census.”

But Lebanon officials balked at the $880,000 price tag and decided to do it themselves.

“We think we can do it cheaper,” said Paul Corder, planning director for Lebanon, which has a population of 44,000 residents.

The special census is rolling out later this summer. Officials hope to spend less than half the federal quote for a count that accurately captures Lebanon’s rapid growth, with a goal of bringing in just under $1 million extra each year in state funding through the end of the decade.

The bureau’s special head counts don’t change political maps, unlike the federal census every decade, but they can lead to more state and federal funding. Communities that request them, or conduct their own, have to decide whether the cost they’ll pay outweighs possible revenue gains, said Tim Kuhn, director of the Tennessee State Data Center.

The National Conference of State Legislatures said it doesn’t have data on how many states permit DIY censuses, but it’s more common in states that have procedures for them, including Tennessee. After the 2010 census, 54 communities in Tennessee conducted their own special censuses, with none seeking help from the Census Bureau.

Since the 2020 census, several Tennessee communities have pursued their own second counts, including LaVergne and Cumberland Gap. The Census Bureau doesn’t track or provide support for communities that do their own censuses, it said in a statement to The Associated Press.

Train service set for Titans home games

The Tennessee Titans and WeGo Public Transit are partnering once again to offer train service from six points east for all preseason and regular season home games.

Service begins in Lebanon with stops in Hamilton Springs, Martha, Mt. Juliet, Hermitage and Donelson before arriving in downtown Nashville approximately one hour before kickoff. The return train to Lebanon leaves Riverfront Station one hour after the game ends.

Tickets for the August, September and October games are on sale now. Tickets for the remaining games will be available for purchase Oct. 23.

Round-trip train tickets are $15 each plus a $2 processing fee. Children ages 4 and younger will not need a ticket to board; however, they are required to sit in a parent’s lap. Tickets must be purchased online at TicketsNashville.com at least one hour in advance of the train departing. Tickets are not available for purchase on the train on game days. Weekday Star tickets and passes are not valid on the Titans Express train.

Parking is free at all outlying stations, and passengers may tailgate at the outlying train stations before the game and on the train. In addition, they may bring small coolers onboard and leave them on the train upon arrival at Riverfront Station.

Metro adds Blink to EV charging infrastructure

Blink Charging Co., a leading global manufacturer, owner, operator and provider of electric vehicle charging equipment and services, has been selected as an EV charging solutions provider for the Metropolitan Government of Nashville-Davidson County.

The exciting new agreement empowers local agencies to acquire Blink’s state-of-the-art EV charging equipment for locations across the county, with the chargers being supplied by Blink and owned by Metro.

With projections indicating a demand for over 30 million chargers by 2030 to support EV growth, Blink’s expertise becomes needed even more. Following the competitive RFP, Blink stood out due to its extensive industry experience and background in working with municipalities around the world, implementing EV infrastructure where drivers need it most.

The Nashville region has become a hotbed of EV development as new facilities continue to be built.

VUMC gets $28M study of COVID-diabetes link

Researchers at Vanderbilt University Medical Center have received a four-year, $28 million grant from the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, part of the National Institutes of Health, to study the relationship between COVID-19 and diabetes.

Several studies have found that infection with SARS-CoV-2 and a COVID-19 diagnosis are associated with a higher risk for the development and progression of both Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes, possibly through the infection of insulin-secreting beta cells, increased insulin resistance, inflammation and fibrosis and other biological processes.

The COVID-19 and Diabetes Assessment Study will identify and recruit 1,600 participants through the T1D Exchange, a research network of diabetes centers, and PCORnet, a national research network funded by the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute, which engages hundreds of health care sites with access to electronic health record data from 30 million-plus patients annually.

People with a known COVID-19 infection within the past 90 days and who also have been diagnosed with diabetes during that period will be compared to those with a recent diabetes diagnosis who have no known COVID-19 infection in the past year. Study participants will be followed for two years.

New AICPA, NASBA plan aids CPA licensure

The American Institute of CPAs and the Nashville-based National Association of State Boards of Accountancy will launch an innovative postgraduate program this fall in collaboration with the Tulane School of Professional Advancement.

The program blends rigorous online learning with on-the-job professional experience for college accounting graduates, offering a less costly and more flexible way to complete the 150-hour course credit requirement to become a licensed CPA.

There has been widespread concern within the CPA profession about a decline both in the volume of accounting graduates and the number of candidates who subsequently go on to take the CPA Exam.

The AICPA-NASBA initiative, called the Experience, Learn and Earn program, is designed to help resolve some of the financial hurdles to college graduates’ pursuit of the CPA license by integrating relevant online study with work experience through a participating accounting firm.

Tulane SoPA will pilot the innovative program during the upcoming academic year, with initial classes beginning in January, and there are plans to add other universities in short order.

The program blends rigorous online learning with on-the-job professional experience for college accounting graduates

The ELE program is designed for accounting majors who have completed their bachelor’s degree and core accounting classes but possess fewer than the 150 credit hours required for licensure.

Area Chamber wins communications award

The Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce has been named one of three Communications Excellence Best in Show winners by ACCE, the Association of Chamber of Commerce Executives.

ACCE is an association based in Alexandria, Virginia, that has more than 1,600 chambers of commerce and related business and economic development organizations as members, representing more than 9,000 professionals in the industry.

ACCE’s Awards for Communications Excellence program, generously supported by Meta, is designed to showcase top communications and marketing work of chambers of commerce and similar organizations. Several thousand award entries have been submitted since the launch of the competition, which is now in its 38th year.

The Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce was named a Best in Show winner for its interactive 2021-22 Digital Annual Report.